UNC entered ACC Tournament with sense of desperation, but couldn’t match NC State’s
Hubert Davis is at times on the North Carolina sideline a human cyclone, a whirling, twisting, stomping dynamo of a coach. And he was that for long stretches during the first half of the ACC Tournament championship game here on Saturday night, and then even more animated during most of his team’s early huddles during timeouts.
From the beginning Saturday, Davis had the look of a man trying to coax more out of the Tar Heels, the tournament’s top seed. More out of them defensively, without question. But also, perhaps, more intensity and more fight and maybe a little more effort, too, in order to match everything that N.C. State brought during its see-it-to-believe-it 84-76 victory.
Davis and his players arrived in Washington earlier in the week talking about desperation. It’d been a long time, by their standards, since the Tar Heels had won the ACC Tournament. They were “desperate,” Armando Bacot said, to win UNC’s first since 2016. Such a victory would’ve allowed UNC to add another banner to its crowded rafters.
Bacot and his teammates didn’t necessarily lack desperation Saturday night. They played hard. They played with energy. The want-to was there. But State, meanwhile, played a team with a yearning and raw longing to do something that no State team had done since 1987. It’d been that long — 13,524 days, to be exact — since the Wolfpack had won the ACC Tournament.
And then, in a torrent of made shots and cascading momentum and hope that turned into belief that turned into inevitability, the Wolfpack had done it. It had completed the most unlikely championship run in ACC Tournament history — five victories in five days, and as the tournament’s No. 10 seed, no less, and as a team that nobody gave a shot.
“I will say my legs hurt right now,” DJ Burns, the burly State forward, said afterward.
Burns finished with 20 points and seven assists and personified a lot of the Wolfpack’s grit Saturday night. He also proved to be a menacing defensive matchup for the Tar Heels, who never quite settled on a plan to defend him.
Sometimes Davis called for a double-team when Burns caught the ball in the post. Sometimes Bacot was left to guard him one-on-one. When doubled, Burns was more likely to find an open teammate, which he did early in the game. And when covered alone, he was often content to do what he does best: back his defender down with his size, and then use his soft touch around the basket.
“He’s such a great passer,” said Davis, the UNC coach. “His ability to be able to score in the paint, he can do that, but he’s also a gifted and elite passer which allows the other guys from the perimeter to be able to shoot the ball from the outside. We try to mix things up to keep them off balance.
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“We’ve had success against them in the past, and we didn’t have success against them tonight.”
Burns, who earned tournament MVP honors, was hardly the only State player who flustered the Tar Heels. DJ Horne finished with a game-high 29 points, despite playing through foul trouble, and fouled out in the final minute — the outcome mostly assured — to Wolfpack fans chanting his name. And for the game, State shot 55% from the field.
It was difficult to say, in the moment, how much of that was a result of defensive failures or, on the other hand, a team simply getting hot and going on the kind of run that defied logic or explanation. State was only playing in this game, after all, after Michael O’Connell’s miracle 3-pointer the night before against Virginia.
O’Connell’s heave, as the buzzer sounded in regulation, banked high off the glass and then spun around the hoop at least twice before finally falling through. It tied the game, and then State prevailed in overtime. If anything, the moment portended the kind of things that happened for State Saturday against UNC.
At times, for instance, the Wolfpack couldn’t miss. Burns even made his first college 3-pointer.
What can be done, on a night like that, for the other team?
Davis tried, at least. In timeouts he took on the appearance and persona of a bit of a madman. He was arguably as animated as he’s ever been in those settings – screaming, clapping, getting in guys’ faces, urging more. And more.
But, Davis said, “We just couldn’t guard them tonight. They shot, what was it — 54%, 55% from the field? That’s just not going to get it done. ... We’ve talked all year that it starts with defense and rebounding and taking care of the basketball.
“And the first thing that I always mention is defense. For us and statistically throughout the ACC, we’ve been No. 1 in terms of all the metrics defensively. Allowing a team to shoot 55% for a game, that’s just not going to work.”
And so one long tournament championship drought ended, while a much shorter one continued. There was some good news, at least, for the Tar Heels: None of their past four national championship teams won the ACC Tournament, either. UNC will be no worse than a No. 2 seed when the NCAA Tournament field is announced Sunday. It could be a No. 1.
“Coach Davis always talks about our response,” said RJ Davis, the senior guard who finished with 30 points and tried to will the Tar Heels to victory in the second half, “and how we’re going to respond when we get knocked down.”
Now Davis and his teammates will have their chance to respond. The level of desperation will rise, given the stakes. It really is win or go home. Both RJ Davis and Bacot spoke of the disappointment and sense of let-down they felt Saturday.
They arrived here thinking it was their time, in this particular event. They were desperate, and hungry, but not as much as a team that hadn’t won the ACC Tournament in almost 40 years. So often on these stages, and so often especially against N.C. State, UNC has been the one to impose its will. This time, it was the opposite.
This time, the Tar Heels found themselves on the other side of the most dramatic championship run in ACC history.
This story was originally published March 17, 2024 at 1:15 AM.
